Science: Still Poking the Damn Bear

Pictured: Every Scientist, Ever.

Science confuses the hell out of me.

It seems like everyone is always “poking the bear” and refusing to leave well-enough alone.

Now, I’ll admit it. I don’t ever really “get” what’s happening in the scientific community, but I do know that it seems like I never hear about anything good like a cure for cancer or AIDS or Lindsay Lohan or anything.

No, no…it seems that every time science is in the news it’s about some crazy sumbitch who decided that the bird flu wasn’t quite dangerous enough, so he essentially gave it a tazer and taught it kung-fu and turned it into the super f’n bird flu.

With that thought in mind, I’m naturally just a wee-bit skeptical about the news that scientists are hoping to clone a freakin’ woolly mammoth within the next five years:

Scientists believe it may be possible to clone a woolly mammoth within five years after finding well-preserved bone marrow in a thigh bone recovered from permafrost soil in Siberia.

Teams from Russia’s Sakha Republic’s mammoth museum and Japan’s Kinki University will launch fully-fledged joint research next year aiming to recreate the giant mammal, Japan’s Kyodo News reported from Yakutsk, Russia.

By replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth’s marrow cells, embryos with mammoth DNA can be produced, Kyodo said, citing the researchers.

The scientists will then plant the embryos into elephant wombs for delivery as the two species are close relatives, the report said.

I don’t want to be the one to say it, but didn’t these nerds see “Jurassic Park” or any of the sequels?

We know how this game ends.

Scientists bring back a long extinct creature that just happens to be the size of a f’n house and they pat each other on the back thinking they’re all-kinds of special.

Then, while they’re giving speeches about what a great accomplishment it was, the big ole fuzzy elephant with the monster tusks decides he’s pretty pissy about his entire species getting wiped out 10,000 years ago and he goes on a freakin’ rampage.

Next thing you know, we’re in a war with man-made monster elephants.

Game over, y’all…

Maybe that’s the worst-case scenario, let’s say—hypothetically—that they don’t go on a killing spree, what then?

What’s the upshot here?

Do we put ‘em in a zoo? Do we eat ‘em? Do we use ‘em as taxis? Do we teach ‘em to do tricks and put ‘em on a reality show?

Their natural habitat is melting because of global warming which is why scientists have been able to find these bits and pieces of frozen mammoth in the first place, so they don’t really have any place to go hang out that isn’t completely overrun with humans or inhabitable to their species.

So, uh, seriously…what the hell do we do with these suckers?!

I think it’s groovy that we’ve got the technology and the gumption to do something like this, but without a real good reason to go through with it, I think I’d rather we just leave nature the hell alone.

If the old saying is “don’t poke the bear,” then you sure as hell gotta think “don’t poke the zombie monster elephant with the built-in face-swords” would be even more apt in this situation, right?